Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Cartoon Forgerypalooza: A Clarification

I want to clarify some things about this ongoing series of posts about the fake cartoon art sold by the Gallery on Baum: First, I want to make it crystal clear that I have not found any evidence whatsoever that Tony Greco and/or the Gallery on Baum are themselves manufacturing the forgeries they sell. For all I know, they could be the victims, here (honestly, though, I doubt it). I have absolutely no way of determining that. I don't know Mr. Greco personally, nor have I physically visited his gallery in Pittsburgh. I have not seen any of these drawings in person. All I know is what I see in the drawings, what I've read elsewhere, and what I know about cartoon art myself. I'm not accusing them of being forgers; I am accusing them of selling forgeries. And I know that they have denied doing so.

The reason why I am writing about this is because I am an obsessive fan of the art of the comic strip, and to a lesser extant, that of animation. As a collector who knows what he's doing, I think eBay is a great place to buy superb, genuine cartoon art, so I personally dislike seeing the water muddied with bad junk.

And last but not least, this series of articles has absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with my place of employment. This is a purely personal project.

Basically, when I saw that Ernie Bushmiller fake, I felt like a trap had been set for me, personally. And that pissed me off.

9 comments:

I'll have to make a point to check out Gallery on Baum soon. I just eyeballed a couple of the tiny scans on GoB's web site, and right there are a very suspiciously faux Addams and a teenager-with-tracing-paper looking Watterson (not peeing on a NASCAR number, mind you).